Choof-Dimwitted Amoral Exploitation EP and Interview with Jake. FFO: Unrelenting PV/Grind and Chaos!.

Choof-Dimwitted Amoral Exploitation EP and Interview with Jake. FFO: Unrelenting PV/Grind and Chaos!.

Melbourne supreme obnoxious merchants of filth, riffs and sludgy powerviolencegrind CHOOF have finally dropped their debut EP and it's a ripper. The demo was fun but definitely didn't match the fierceness of their live shows. So what is on show here you ask, well imagine a stoner/sludgy version of Axiom (Portland's 90's killer Scandi crust band) covering Apartment 213(early 2000's unbeatable powerviolence/grind dark purveyors of nihilistic brutality). Add multiple layers of perverted fetish porn mixed with the most degenerate serial killer tales, and pour this on your early 20s sharehouse rank carpet infused with repugnant bong stains and delectable vomit infusions.
Hell yes!.

The eight tracks are solid, energetic and all exceptionally well written. Blasphemous Execution like most tracks is a short, sharp shotgun blast to your groin; but it starts off with unhinged screaming and a real forboding slow tempo sludgy intro, but in no time, hits the ice pipe hard and heads into total underground rare vinyl territory-but the skilled beauty is just how they cram so much awesome shit into one bong, sorry song. Yoghurt Cups is a wild ride into crazed chaos again(check the video for this ripper below) and we see one of the many selling points on their resume, the singer's vocal style I call "Your angry father screaming at you on a Sunday morning when you have a hangover voice", and across this release and at each live performance this works in sync or perhaps way out of sync with his many other magnificent vocal personas. It's unique and sick as fuck. Like most tracks, it certainly blurs the lines between power violence and old-school grind, whilst being catchy as fuck and often utterly sludgy/groove driven. 
Mortuary Rat also has a rad video and is more forceful and has some wild hardcore riffage around the 1:04 min mark you need to pay attention to. The very refreshing thing about this band is that the band experience/skill is immensely high and amongst the chaotic nature of the songs is clever songwriting and frankly exceedingly intelligent composition. There is none of this lame go very fast, then slow, then fast bullshit here; for all the party vibe nature this is a laser-focused band that can write classic tracks that hit the mark. Every-fucking-time. Buried at Dozier and Satanico Pandemonium are classic cases in point, the havoc ridden riffs, explosive drums/bass and turbulent vocals all deliver their purpose at the right timing be it with a sledgehammer or a rusty boltcutter-like subtlety.
 
Epileptic Exorchist does sounds like several other parts of the other tracks at the start, but thankfully and in a very gratifying manner heads into the lunatic audio asylum as a strong part of the deranged last section of this fascinating release. The last two tracks really seal the deal for me, Skull Archery is so chunky, brawny and dirty with those slimy and stinging riffs and the change at 1:40 min was glorious and so hectic. Duct Tape Mummy has more of a death metal vibe at the start, with tons of vocal changes and they finally drop the tough guy routine to finally reveal their colossal Eyehategod worship, which is never a bad thing indeed. That end riff is stunning in a sex worker giving you drugs in a dingy alleyway style. The production is a definitive perfect match for the band and you need to see this band live, and buy their rad merch. And you can do all of these essential tasks, this month as these lucky fuckers are the support for Despise You, yeah that's right the Los Angeles Powerviolence kings!!!.
One of the best releases this year by a mile!!

Out now:

Watch these videos:


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and


here are the Despise Tour dates:

DESPISE YOU + CHOOF
Australian Tour 2023
Tickets on sale now via:
www.deadset.oztix.com.au

Tuesday, May 23 @ Vinnie’s Dive – Southport
w/- Shitgrinder + Entrapment

Wednesday, May 24 @ King Lear’s Throne – Brisbane
w/- The Meat + Skirmisher

Thursday, May 25 @ Transit Bar – Canberra
w/- Blight Worms + Bloodmouth

Friday, May 26 @ The Duke – Sydney
w/- Darkhorse + Maggot Cave

Saturday, May 27 @ The Tote – Melbourne
w/- Internal Rot + Diploid


...and here's a very unsavoury interview with the deranged singer of said band, Jake. Just messing with you knuckleheads, even though I know this guy, this was one of my fave interviews-bands could learn so much from this, like band folk: if you get interviewed try and have personality and provide some entertainment as well as give information in interviews, not boring sell-the-product vibes and zero depth. Cheers Jake, this was a wicked interview!! 

CHOOF INTERVIEW WITH JAKE

CHOOF Interview with Jake:

Greetings my berzerk friend, you just dropped your brilliant debut EP (Dimwitted Amoral Exploitation), it is a grimy, abusive voyage into utterly psychotic audio violence, give me the dirt on how this EP came about? Was it an easy process? WTF does the title mean? The stunning album cover is immense and definitively classic, give me the back story or inspiration for it? who did it?

Hi Mark! First of all, watch out who you are calling berserk- I’d like to remind anybody reading this that one of the earliest encounters I had with you was at a Blasphemy show where you are clobbering every cunt in sight, hahaha good times.

Honestly, the process behind getting their ep together has been relatively easy, just time-consuming... We knocked the recording out in February of last year down in Frankston at Singing Bird Studios over a bag of coke with Stu and Max. Squiz the old chook came down and lent his words of wisdom and helped on the production side of things (to get that filthiness just right).

The story behind the title is for us to know and you to work out, if you do I’ll buy you a drink and drink it for you!!. The album artwork was done by Nano from Black Rheno (keeping things incestuous), he basically listened to the recordings and sent us a draft of what you can see now and we just went back and forth making it more and more fitting to the material each time. So basically grosser and grosser each time.

Give me the story of how the band came about, (and add any wanky references to previous bands for hipster fame and social media likes), and also why does this band gel so well together I mean this is so evident as a live band, and how is so different from your previous band fuckery?

The band was actually formed by Jack and Adam quite some time ago and there were a few line-up changes before Jackson and myself ended up in the band however it wasn't long after the four of us started jamming that the songs for the demo tape started to come together the way you hear them now. We were real lucky in the we had access to a factory during lockdown so while everything else was kind of falling apart we're or able to keep on grinding. I think it gave us a real heads up because as soon as restrictions were up we were in the van and playing shows as soon as possible.

Jack and Adam used to play in Cosmic Kahuna and I think their comradery from the band definitely carries over to CHOOF… Jackson plays in Party Vibez (so did Jack for a while) so those guys were all pretty well acquainted and my old punk band Stoned to Death had shared bills with a couple of their bands etcetera. I think the thing that’s different from all of our previous bands (and I might be speaking out of turn) is that despite all of us having a different input to the band the vision as a whole is completely our own if that makes any sense at all. It's pretty rare that we have to compromise on an idea artistically, because we are all on the same page about it.

The CHOOF brand is certainly based on your solid live performances, which are unhinged, confronting and dynamic, what inspires these types of engaging/abrasive shows, I know you pretty well and your eclectic taste is certainly defined by an extensive knowledge base of underground releases-so illustrate who drives your performance as a wild frontman and what particular bands inspired your sound; because I see it as a wild intersection between old school sludge, power violence, punk and underground grind; but the nasty kind of 7” releases that blow your fucking mind based on the subject matter and sonic madness.

Also, what do you feel like you embody as a live performer when on stage, or in your case; off the stage?

I think it would be really easy for me to say that I go up there and channel The Ghost of GG Allin when we play live but honestly I don't think any of us think about it or pre-plan anything things just seem to always end up in chaos. I can't begin to explain to you how many nights I get off and have no idea what the fuck just happened. It’s like for 25 minutes you have complete and total licence to do whatever you want… I mean how quickly would you be thrown out of a pub for not wearing shoes and spitting beer at patrons while calling everybody under the roof a cunt all within under 5 minutes.

The subject matter is definitely driven by your own passion for reading and watching films about killers, gore and generalized depravity? Are any particular books or movies that were impactful on this release?

I believe you blend the subject matter with the music in a way far more stylized or in sync than a garden-variety gore grind or death metal band; seemingly more creatively?

Haha I don’t know about more creative but I’ll take the compliment. I was trying to explain my writing process to somebody the other day and put it as instead of describing the worst thing that could happen i.e. being disembowelled, write about why it happens. A lot of the time this is absolutely futile when a lot of the subjects in question are beyond any point of rationality but I think that in itself gives you a lot of room to work with. Obviously, this isn't the case with all of the tracks, like moments of just indulging in nastiness and absurdity like Duct Tape Mummy.

I think in writing this EP the things going into it that had the biggest influence were the Feral House publication of apocalypse culture and especially the article on Karen Greenlee. I honestly found it hard not to sympathize with the concessions within the book, though I wouldn't say that I advocate for necrophilia I can definitely understand the mental breaks and societal failings that lead to her indiscretions. I hope the song that I wrote 'Mortuary Rat’ doesn’t read as exploitative. Another big influence was a 3-hour interview with two men who had survived the Doizer Institute for boys in Florida. They just spoke so candidly about the abuse that they suffered there and painted such a clear picture of misery in a way almost reminiscent of veterans speaking on their experience.

However, if I was to cite some more wider references, I would say that film Near Dark, Ol Waylon by Waylon Jennings, the satanic panic, anything published by Peter Sotos and of course a plethora of contraband supplied to me by the great folks down at Trashcult in Eaglehawk.

Let’s get back to the release, what are your standout tracks and why? Yoghurt Cups was a banger of a clip, how did that concept come up, because it’s like a solid indie film with blood and loud music? I am guessing it hails back to your love of underground movies? Are the other nutters into weird culture as well? CHOOF seems to be a centralized unit for so many unsavoury activities and is cannabis still a strong inspiration for the band, or just one of the many options to assist us in a super bland messed up world? I mean CHOOF doesn’t have a political message, but cannabis and related products are certainly more in the discussion, I am very aware of that as a healthcare worker; is Choof here to save our souls?

I don't know if you noticed but on the actual record, it is said one and then side a because there is no b tracks mate, they are all a standout. At least that’s what we keep telling ourselves.

The concept for the video actually came from the video's director Hussain Khoder, he had been sitting on the idea for a few years and when he mentioned it to me; I knew that we had a winning concept to work with. Both of us are cinephiles and big genre fans and I think that bleeds through in the concept and execution. As for the rest of the band, they are admittedly quite a bit more wholesome than myself, Baby Jack lives on a diet of sweets spending his downtime with his cat Batman… Adam plays the banjo in his spare time when not stressing over the state of Italian food in Melbourne and Jackson spends quite a bit of time in the laboratory so to speak.

There is definitely no political message behind CHOOF, I think society is past the point of listening to 4 white males lecture about how they think the world should be. Instead, I would say that we advocate for the consumption of depraved media.

Choof utterly play stupid amounts of shows and sometimes back-to-back shows after playing even interstate, how do you do it, on the exterior the band presents as a bunch of cone-pulling drunkards, but your drive is very pronounced and you also have played some big shows as well?

We have all been smoking and drinking for so long now that I would go so far as to say that we are high-functioning addicts hahaha I think all of us have our own vices but that means we can play off one and others… for instance, I'm a drunk so I can basically never drive the car but I'm happy to run a lot of the admin for the band where is Jackson doesn't drink very much so he’ll drive. It’s a delicate balancing act that will be ruined the moment we all start taking heroin.

The debut ep differs quite broadly from the demo which we gave some hype to, but the influences are quite diverse on this one? It doesn’t dip strongly into one particular genre, but takes the best of some classic underground ones. Is this an attempt to get more people like Parkway Drive fans into you? That said I love the record, I think if you cannot pigeonhole shit, it’s way deeper and more resonating.

The production is bonkers on this as well, real in your face and pounding; sexual stuff aside what do you think and was it the aim to simply match the live abuse you dish out?

Also, give me your fave tracks on it?

I think first and foremost we created the songs for ourselves, an amalgamation of all the things we love even if we don’t always have the same influences as one another. What we realised very quickly though was that we have a much younger fanbase then our previous bands and that's something we’ve really come to embrace. The younger crowds always go absolutely mental but I think it's their level of appreciation and drive to learn more that always invigorates. There is nothing cooler than recommending a book or a movie to a younger fan and them coming up to you later and then telling you how much they identify with it. Usually, it’s something awful like August Underground’s Mordum, which makes me all the more happy.

In regards to the production side, you would have to talk to somebody who knows something about anything, I’m useless. I do know that it was Ben Boatwright who did the final mastering for the EP and he had worked on my favourite release from last year which was ‘Gravesend – methods of human disposal’ as well as those really crisp Poison Idea reissues.

 

I think my favourite tracks from the release would have to be Mortuary Rat 4 reasons I have highlighted earlier as well as Skull Archery I think that's probably just about my favourite one to play live.

Either as a collective or individually, you have Australia’s best merch by an absolute mile, talk us through this?.

The merch line is unparelled, from striking designs to options available for the cvlt fan. What is coming up next, as I see the EP bundles are outstanding?

 We are incredibly fortunate in that we print and design a lot of our own Merch so we're not held back by a lot on that front and it also means that we can get out things from concept to the Merch desk quite quickly. But most importantly it means we can keep the costs low and the price of our Merch as low as possible… despite merchandise making up such a crucial part of a band's revenue it’s still intrinsically a piece of art that you want to pass on fans for them to enjoy it and when we have such an especially young crowd we want to make sure that it’s affordable to everybody. I hate watching local bands price gouge their merchandise because they're building a fanbase, who cares that you are signed to some shitty hipster label, fuck that.

We have actually just reprinted another run of our long sleeves as well as more of the orange FUKKIN UNREAL shirts and there is going to be some absolutely wild Merch attached to our next release that should be coming at the end of this year but more about that later…

Tell me about your fave shows to play so far, hype any bands you like and when are you finally playing Dark Mofo?

I think just about all the best shows our DIY, any show that Internal Rot is on the bill you know you're going to basically be pummelled to fuckin death and honestly anywhere where they’ll let ya smoke in the green room and rider is good. We’ll play Mofo the moment they’ll have us!! *Wink wink*

 

What’s coming up next for the band? Releases, videos, tours etc.

Do you and other members have side projects and bands you’d like to mention?

What factors determined your signing to your current record label?

After the Despise You tour is in the bag the next big project for us will be putting out a 7 inch split with those chainsaw-wielding maniac from up in N.S.W. Carnal Viscera… the art is just about done and it is absolutely amazing maybe the best on a release I've worked on so far. Grindhead Records who are working on the record are cooking up some of the most absurd and wild Merch you have ever seen, anywhere. Hoping to have that one out for the end of this year.

I will shamelessly take a moment to say that the new Pissrash EP is in the bag, piss coloured 7” coming soon and tapes from one of Sydney’s finest underground labels. Hopefully more on that soon. Other than that I think we’re all just eagerly awaiting Adam to start doing stand-up comedy and to have us all cancelled within about 5 minutes.

Give me your top 5 seven-inch releases and albums at this point in time?

Fuck man, that's a hard one but in order I’ve been smashing:

• Apartment 213 – Cleveland powerviolence

• Squarepusher - feed me weird things

• Methchrist – Pestilential Warfare Of The Black Flame

• John Carpenter - Prince of Darkness OST

• Despise You / Coke Bust – Stillborn, fuck it

Why is music and art so damn important? What does it mean to you as a fan and lover of these important passions?

Art is important because it's not work whether we like it or not the system has most of us going around and around in a circle so those brief moments of release are usually the only ones we're really living for. For us, it’s that 25 minutes of exploding on stage.

Who would you say is the band that sound the most like Choof?

If you had the entire world’s attention, how would you sell your band’s worth, what’s the key factor why Choof is a first-rate band?

I think that we sound like a lot of John Ruiz rolled into one but I think that it’s hard to identify another band that we directly sound like because we move between our implements is at such a sporadic rate that we never spend enough time in one area to get fully involved. It’s basically the ADHD approach to writing.

 

Honestly if we had the whole world's attention, I would be deleting my browser history and ducking for cover cancellation will follow imminently.

If Choof could play with any bands alive or dead, which four would it be and why?

The ultimate lineup for us would be;

WAYLON JENNINGS

INFEST

NORM MACDONALD

and

SADISTIK EXECUTION



If you can't work out why then maybe go back and re-read the rest of this interview.

Congrats on the incredible release, it deranged and off its head heavy. Any final messages or words of wisdom?

Thanks heaps Mark, usually we tell most people fuck off, but you're alright I guess. My only message would be to come and say hi at the merch desk, let’s have a smoke and talk about how devoid of hope this all really is.


CHECK OUT CHOOF ASAP OR ELSE!!!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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